So it's literally something like, "What are you making in this moment?". Interesting. I see sometimes that things "have" or "give" in German, when they wouldn't in English. Things like this confuse me, because I take it literally. I'm not sure how that all works yet.

Yeah, so much of it can't be translated literally. My friend from Aachen has told me this many times She's like, stop translating things word for word! But that's how most people learn

Like
Wie spät ist es?
Is
what time is it? But if you translated it literally it's "how late is it?"
Or
Wie viel Grad haben wir?
What's the temperature? It's like ... how much celsius do we have

My friend says you just have to learn things the way they are said and not overthink it. It's hard for me though. Still, if you said ... Was ist es Zeit? People would probably understand that you mean what time is it.

RA: Thanks for the explanation. That makes more sense, for "im" to be a short form/contraction of "in dem"--"i(n de)m". At least that's how I'm understanding it. It's very simple, but that's something dictionary definitions don't tell me. Now I need to figure out "dem" et all. I understand about "der, das, die", but while my book mentions others, I haven't learned them yet and am left scratching my head when I see them used. This is the problem with studying at an absolute beginner level, while at the same time trying to understand conversational German, and things written for adults.

You´re welcome What helped me to improve my English (at least I THINK I have improved it ) was reading English books. Maybe you could try to read German books, this is also a good way to learn phrases and helps you to not always translate it word by word.
And for the "dem/den" thing: "dem" is used when talking about things in singular. If you are talking in plural, you have to use "den". "Ich sitze auf dem Stuhl" (I´m sitting on a chair) and "Sie sitzen auf den Stühlen" (They´re sitting on the chairs). See?

The definite articles {der, die, das} is pretty hard to understand because we don't use them in English. And it's not just a matter of der=masculine, die=feminine, and das=neuter. So your table is female and your book is male, that's easy to understand, hehe They also change according to the noun's placement in the sentence. This is really where the grammar is kicking my butt Here's a little wikipedia action on the articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_articles

A friend of mine sent me this book:
Essential German Grammar and it has really helped a lot with understanding the grammar.
As does the Idiot's guide on occasion, hehe

I was going to start a thread with that message but I feel a little strange doing so Can we start the threads and then they can be moved later?
I know on the forum I'm a mod on we can do that, but this might not have the same set up.
Nicer colors though